Welcome

Choosing a sustainable future requires like-minded people first to find each other, to share ideas and think critically about the situation in which we find ourselves and to support the efforts we make to live differently. All of these things create the relationships that a sustainable future requires, close at hand and around the world. In the self-organising system that is Life, there are no boundaries in time and space that define our possibilities, if we let them unfold as they are able.

Knowledge, thought, care, compassion, respect, thankfulness and love — in synthesis, these all together lead to the wisdom that will enable our generation to write a new chapter in the Earth story which will be honoured and remembered out to the seventh generation.

Perhaps we may need to start by networking, by putting the pieces together, but this has to lead to seeing the Whole for what it is. The Earth, like ourselves, is much more than the sum of its parts. Through story we may catch a glimpse of that Whole that will illuminate the choices we make, every day.

What you find here are thoughts and reflections on a variety of themes. Most relate to the challenge of sustainability that faces our generation — and especially how to find hope in the midst of that challenge, with all its facets.

For those whose inspiration and encouragement started me on this path, including the students who have pestered me for the last twenty years, I offer my gratitude. Some are old friends, others are new friends whose gifts I am only beginning to appreciate. For his initial encouragement and suggestions, I especially want to thank Tom Murphy, whose blog is found at http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/. We share the same impulse to do this work and his blog demonstrates the intellectual tools we have at our disposal to make sense of our situation, its practical realities and our potential to do things differently.

In the end, the choices are mine, as are the ideas and opinions. In the struggle to find synthesis, I have crossed many disciplinary boundaries and learned from many people in very different places — including things they perhaps did not realize they were teaching me.

Everything here, like its author, is very definitely a work in progress.

I value your own ideas in response, but for now have made the decision not to enable comments, as the time involved in moderating and responding seems less constructive than producing more for you to read. If you like what you find, pass it on, and return for more. I can be reached through the Contact form or followed on Twitter @green_ethics.